tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83744731566282287402011-07-08T09:29:08.904-04:00My journey becoming an elementary education teacherMariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.comBlogger551100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-90839829644650147812010-04-17T12:15:00.000-04:002010-04-17T12:15:00.471-04:00

I think that it will feel strange on Monday that I will not be completely in charge of the class anymore. In a way, I think it will be good experience in terms of team teaching, though. My CM will be taking over the mornings with Shared Reading, we will both contribute to Guided Reading, and I will continue to teach math and writing. The last week of my student teaching I will be able to pick

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-71479404194874843562010-04-16T12:16:00.000-04:002010-04-16T12:16:00.643-04:00

It was an exhausting week. While my second week of full-time teaching was easier in terms of classroom management, it was still just as hard in terms of lesson planning and implementation. I learned that there are so many things to think about and juggle throughout the course of the day. I think that is what makes teaching so exhausting, constantly planning, evaluating and coordinating

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-12475812557390002010-04-14T12:14:00.000-04:002010-04-14T12:15:09.039-04:00

I have learned that good lesson planning is the best way to prevent behavior problems. Lessons where I can engage the students in a meaningful way are the ones where I have less acting out. In addition, though, I have realized how important it is to have good time management. I now know the students in my class that will immediately start acting out when they finish their class work. Having

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-83901003053558930912010-03-25T19:40:00.000-04:002010-03-25T19:40:00.316-04:00

I am still struggling to estimate how much time certain activities will take. It never seems like there is enough time in the day or the week to get everything done (especially when you have to fit in testing and test prep!) I would rather have too much planned than run out of lessons for the day, but it causes me to constantly evaluate which lessons to cut or how to extend to give students

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-15942313189207778432010-03-23T19:38:00.000-04:002010-03-23T19:40:21.894-04:00

This week the students seemed to be getting burned out on taking tests. They had to take the Benchmarks this week. They took the Reading Benchmark on Tuesday afternoon. The class as a whole did not score very well. It was surprising and much different than their predictive test and previous benchmarks. The passages that they had to read seemed very long to me. In addition, I think that they

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-81143160284878547702010-03-19T16:53:00.000-04:002010-03-19T16:53:00.136-04:00

On Friday afternoon I led a math vocabulary game. My CM has electronic buzzers similar to those on a game show that the kids could use during the game. She warned me that the kids go crazy for this game, so I knew that I would have to set expectations. I set my expectations before we started and had to remind them of it once while playing. There was a little bit of confusion, because the kids

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-49375984113470244942010-03-17T16:50:00.001-04:002010-03-17T16:50:01.351-04:00

This week I taught a mini-unit on coordinate grids as a supplement to their regular math lessons. They need to know this concept for the PSSA's, but it will not be covered until afterward. My CM helped me a lot with finding resources on the topic. I used an old version of the Investigations curriculum that taught coordinate grids by looking at a neighborhood map on a grid system. I started

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-19989850672937172312010-03-16T16:48:00.000-04:002010-03-16T16:48:00.322-04:00

In Literacy, the students worked on writing a response to literature essay. It was suggested in the Trophies curriculum guide to use this type of writing with the story for this week. The story, In the Days of Kind Adobe, is a folktale and the students wrote about whether or not they thought it was a good example of a folktale. I found it very satisfying to work with the students on this

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-294135410394925622010-03-15T16:45:00.002-04:002010-03-15T16:48:20.345-04:00

Last week, I had the opportunity to help make the math test that the students took on Friday. I found a couple of questions from the PSSA coach book that I included to give them practice with constructed response. I also made up a couple of questions to match more closely matched the kind of work that we had done in class. Finally, I included a short assessment from their curriculum textbook.

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-14775236711823600652010-03-12T11:08:00.000-05:002010-03-12T11:08:00.757-05:00

I can feel myself easing into a full-time role. It has taken awhile because of the missed snow days, but this week I have taken more control in the classroom. I realized that I just needed to start asserting myself and taking charge. It is a tricky balance because I don't want to step on my CM's toes. However, I feel that we have a relationship now where I feel comfortable stepping up and

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-57450174354010496122010-03-11T11:06:00.000-05:002010-03-11T11:06:00.598-05:00

One thing I love about this age group is that they are still young enough that they get excited about small things at school. There are very few times when I announce an assignment that I hear groans. Instead, I usually hear at least a couple of students say "yes!" I have been reading the students a Harriet Tubman biography during morning meeting. The students are very interested in it. One

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-88967122683624086062010-03-10T23:03:00.002-05:002010-03-10T23:06:30.469-05:00

I think that this was actually my first full week in the the classroom because of all of the snow days. It was great to have a steady run and feel a deeper connection to the class and routines. On Monday the students did the "Think and Respond" questions about the story in their textbooks that we had read the previous week. The story was a non-fiction piece about inventors. There were a

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-71120244074407847252010-03-05T16:39:00.001-05:002010-03-05T16:47:06.547-05:00

GSE is now on Twitter! Follow us at: www.twitter.com/penngse for updated information and events.

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-40493662196713612932010-02-18T20:46:00.000-05:002010-02-18T20:46:00.785-05:00

The 4th grade at Penn Alexander participate in a great program called Reading Buddies. Every other week the students visit a local retirement home. They are paired up with a buddy who they read with during their visit. It is a fantastic program, one that the students and buddies look forward to each time. The students bring their latest reading assignment with them. After they have finished

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-8102384515316013252010-02-17T20:38:00.002-05:002010-02-17T20:44:07.713-05:00

This Saturday GSE will be hosting an open house to learn more about the Teacher Education Program. The event will take place from 10:00-11:30am on Penn's campus (in the Terrace Room at Cohen Hall). It will be a great opportunity to get your questions answered from faculty, staff and current students. For more information, check out the GSE webpage: http://www.gse.upenn.edu/node/156. Hope to

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-9333090390297611402010-02-12T19:03:00.000-05:002010-02-12T19:03:00.389-05:00

Today I led most of the day. It felt great to try out this role. In the morning we started a new read aloud, a biography of Harriet Tubman. I focused on looking at the front and back cover of the book to make predictions about the story. I was pleased with how attentive the students were during the discussion. I find it interesting that they seem more engaged in the non-fiction read alouds

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-8959385215195266292010-02-11T19:00:00.000-05:002010-02-11T19:00:02.817-05:00

There were a lot of social conflicts in the class this week. There was name calling, teasing, and pushing. Some of the incidents happened in front of me, while most happened on the playground or when my CM or I were working with other students. Last semester I was reluctant to get involved with social conflicts between students. However, I think that this semester I need to learn how to

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-24763757867897606342010-02-05T19:41:00.001-05:002010-02-05T19:41:00.165-05:00

One of the great things about my CM's classroom management is teaching the students to be independent. I appreciate how she expects them to take care of themselves, their belongings, and the classroom as a whole. She also expects many housekeeping tasks to be done without students asking her or her telling them to do it. It reminds me of a parent/child relationship in terms of taking care of a

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-28979843167643479992010-02-03T19:36:00.000-05:002010-02-03T19:36:00.381-05:00

Today I led another shared reading activity. It was a lesson focusing on character traits from the story that we had read yesterday. I walked the class through identifying a character trait for one of the characters and then finding examples from the text to support that trait. Then they had to do the same thing for a different character from the story. While they were working on their own,

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-67237731507534460442010-02-02T19:35:00.000-05:002010-02-02T19:35:00.131-05:00

Today I led a shared reading activity. They usually listen to a tape recorded version of the story from their textbook and my CM stops the tape to ask questions throughout. I followed this model and used the teacher's guide to help me with what type of questions to ask. Even though it went well, there are some improvements that I think I could make. One thing is to have a clearer focus for

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-15266813478888320552010-01-31T19:42:00.002-05:002010-01-31T20:03:59.835-05:00

I attended a teacher workshop on Saturday at the art museum about shadow puppetry. It was led by a group called Chinese Theatre Workshop. It was a fascinating workshop and I am so glad that I took the time to participate in it. I used to work in theatre and am always thinking about ways to incorporate it into teaching. In addition, I have seen several performances that incorporated shadow

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-32579356061281472052010-01-29T20:14:00.001-05:002010-01-29T20:14:00.772-05:00

The students have been working on a social studies project over the past two weeks. They have been studying immigrants in the United States. For this project, the class was divided into small groups and each assigned a different racial group to study. They researched how the group originally came to the United States and their contributions to American culture. Today, the groups presented

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-39452591607772940382010-01-26T20:09:00.000-05:002010-01-26T20:09:00.248-05:00

I have been noticing some ways that my CM adjusts the curriculum to meet the class' needs. A small example was during the spelling pre-test. The book gives example sentences to read to the students. She changed some of the sentences to make them more relevant to the students. For example, one word was "avenue" and the sentence was about driving down Oak Avenue. She changed it to Lancaster

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-56714360502197423292010-01-22T15:33:00.000-05:002010-01-22T15:33:00.309-05:00

The students have started to test me this week. If my CM runs out of the room for a minute to make a copy, the students notice and I can tell that they start to get more excited. There was one student that would look at me to see if I was paying attention, then throw a ball across his desk or do something else distracting like that. I said his name as a warning the first time. He was

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-67948861844978030942010-01-21T13:29:00.000-05:002010-01-21T13:29:00.213-05:00

I can't believe that this was only the second week of the new semester! The time is already flying by. I led two math sessions in the computer lab this week. My CM wanted me to teach the students how to use a computer program called LogoPaths. It includes extension activities that deal with shapes, perimeter and area. When initially thinking about how to teach them to use this program, I

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-7051204478063200982010-01-19T16:24:00.000-05:002010-01-19T16:24:00.140-05:00

This week I am starting to become more involved in the class. Today I started reading the end of the day read-aloud. The class is currently reading a Nancy Drew book. They meet on the carpet after they have gathered their belongings and we read a chapter before the are dismissed. It is surprising to me how engaged the students are in this reading, considering they are only minutes away from

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-69596162836173720642010-01-16T13:20:00.002-05:002010-01-16T13:24:09.753-05:00

I am back at school and back at student teaching! This week was a big shift for me. Not only am I in a new classroom, but I am experiencing being in a self-contained class for the first time. I switched placements from being in the science room at Penn Alexander to a 4th grade class at the same school. It was great staying in the same school because the students in my new class already were

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-80401784920596877642009-12-15T13:14:00.000-05:002009-12-15T13:14:00.213-05:00

I have been thinking about confidence recently. Both my Penn Mentor and Classroom Mentor have told me at certain points that I just need some more confidence or that they could tell that I did not feel comfortable at some points. At first, these comments surprised me because I do not think of myself as lacking confidence. Therefore, it caused me to really reflect on this aspect of my presence

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-57711792539856130312009-12-12T13:16:00.000-05:002009-12-12T13:16:00.898-05:00

Yesterday I had the chance to go to a Dodgeball tournament (as a spectator). It was really fun. There is a group in the Philadelphia called the Philadelphia Sports Network, that runs different intermural sports leagues. I think that they also have kickball, baseball and soccer, as well as other sports. This dodgeball game was the last of their season, the championship match. I watched the

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-12619782425044225682009-12-11T13:11:00.002-05:002009-12-11T13:14:35.367-05:00

I had a really great week of student teaching. I feel like I am finally coming into my own as a teacher. It started with my 1st grade lesson on Tuesday. I finally felt like I had a good class with them. The focus of the lesson was to wrap-up the unit on solids and liquids. The curriculum guide was not very helpful this week in figuring out how to plan the lesson. Mostly they suggested that

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-60780566354727465242009-12-09T18:28:00.000-05:002009-12-09T18:28:00.515-05:00

I had some interesting interactions with the fourth graders this week as well. It is interesting because I am finally feeling like a strong presence in the classes at this point in the semester. The students across grades now know my name and will often wave to me when they see me in the hallways. Because of this stronger presence, I also can feel my role shifting in terms of interactions with

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-32576529017258252212009-12-08T18:24:00.003-05:002009-12-08T18:28:41.720-05:00

Today was a really fun day with lots of hands-on activities happening in science. It started out with 3rd grade exploring how sound travels through different materials (wood, string and aluminum foil). They had to work as a group to test these different objects with tuning forks and listen to the different sounds. It was a great group activity because they literally could not do these

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-27303876076074174592009-12-01T21:23:00.000-05:002009-12-01T21:23:00.231-05:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about small group versus whole class instruction. In my teaching methods courses, we learn about many different techniques to engage students in instruction. One of the common themes throughout the course work is small group lessons. The benefits are clear: the teacher can tailor instruction to meet specific students' needs, the students can learn how to work

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-50669998430144815642009-11-30T21:12:00.002-05:002009-11-30T21:22:34.134-05:00

We had Thursday and Friday off this week for Thanksgiving break. It was so nice to have a couple of extra days off. The end of the semester is quickly approaching (only 3 more weeks!) and my big Term III assignment is due in less than 2 weeks. Needless to say, I have been feeling the pressure of trying to keep up with school work while also planning, teaching and analyzing lessons. I decided

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-27079228124892114272009-11-25T15:43:00.000-05:002009-11-25T15:43:00.613-05:00

Today was a very busy day. The 4th and 5th graders were taking the science benchmarks. I read the questions out loud while they answered. Then the 4th graders were deciding on their science fair questions. There were very few students that understood how to set up a good science experiment. Most of them had research questions that they wanted to investigate or they had too many variables for

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-60455731655764133562009-11-24T15:40:00.000-05:002009-11-24T15:40:00.140-05:00

I had a lot more responsibility this week. Today I taught the 1st grade again. It went much smoother than last week. I started the class by reading a poem that related to the lesson. It was amazing how this really helped to focus them and get them ready for the lesson. I adapted the lesson to make sure that the students could work in groups instead of partners this time. I think that this

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-89307370229504125962009-11-23T15:46:00.003-05:002009-11-23T15:59:28.187-05:00

I had the opportunity to go to the Cranberries Reunion Concert this past week. It was super fun and a childhood dream come true! It was the band's 20th year reunion. I could not believe that it had been that long since they first got started. They played in a medium sized venue in Philly called the Electric Factory (because it is an old factory). They put on an amazing show. There was so

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-43858328967931253862009-11-18T16:07:00.000-05:002009-11-18T16:07:00.281-05:00

Today I visited Wissahickon Charter School. I had the opportunity to sit in on the middle school science class. The teacher was very inspirational. He has been teaching for 15 years, but still had so much energy and enthusiasm for both the content he was teaching and for the students. He was teaching an integrated social studies and science unit. They were studying the history of the school

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-61259055101232532932009-11-17T15:48:00.000-05:002009-11-17T15:48:00.477-05:00

Today I had the chance to teach the 1st grade class. I read over the curriculum teacher guide and prepared the materials in the morning before school. I did not have time to discuss it with my CM before school started, so I just followed the teacher guide closely. When the students first came in the room. I realized that I did not know exactly how to get the class started. I think that this

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-12512265177553464492009-11-16T19:28:00.000-05:002009-11-16T19:28:00.465-05:00

Today we had a Special Topics seminar about classroom management. It was led by one of the Penn Mentors. Penn Mentors are people that are either taking a break from teaching or retired who help to guide the student teachers throughout the year. They are a terrific resource! Lana, the Penn Mentor that led the seminar, taught middle school language arts in the Philadelphia School District for 30

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-15839855239902167912009-11-11T22:46:00.000-05:002009-11-11T22:46:00.537-05:00

The 3rd grade took a test today. They were noisy and the room still seemed slightly chaotic even though they were doing individual work. The class is overwhelming at times because there are 27 kids in a very small space. The class size really does make a difference in terms of the atmosphere in the room. With the 3rd grade, the students are sitting so close together and the room buzzes. I

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-65353031069371384902009-11-10T22:43:00.000-05:002009-11-10T22:43:00.661-05:00

I have been constantly thinking about inquiry-based learning since starting student teaching. Obviously this is a natural thought process, as I am in a science classroom with a teacher who uses an inquiry stance to teaching. However, it has been interesting to observe this type of learning in the younger grades. In the beginning of the year, I felt that some of the 1st and 2nd grade students

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-75336654307367286012009-11-06T14:15:00.001-05:002009-11-13T11:22:11.724-05:00

Right now I am in the thick of planning my Term III assignment. For Term III, the focus is on small-group instruction. We need to examine our personal teaching beliefs and philosophies. Then, we plan 4 different lessons (one in each subject- literacy, math, science and social studies) that we will teach to a small group of about 4-6 students. I have been consumed with thinking about how to

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-66302645396300942852009-11-04T16:10:00.000-05:002009-11-04T16:10:00.299-05:00

Today we had 3rd grade during first period. My CM taught them a lesson about mineral hardness. Then I took over explaining the lab that they were going to be working on and managed the class while they worked on it. After they were finished, I also led the wrap-up discussion. It was great getting a chance to be in front of the class. I found it more difficult to try to observe and monitor

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-74358884391065141212009-11-03T16:06:00.000-05:002009-11-03T16:06:00.534-05:00

This week I felt a weight lifted off of my shoulders because the Child Study assignment is done! We had our big integrated assignment for Term II due. It was involved observing and interviewing one child from our school to learn more about the student as a learner and individual. My final paper ended up being about 30 pages and it felt great to turn it in! I have been itching to move away

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-73589072200049144412009-11-02T15:49:00.005-05:002009-11-02T16:01:44.510-05:00

This weekend was very busy! It was Halloween and the Phillies games. For those of you who don't follow sports, the Phillies are in the World Series. It is a very big deal in Philadelphia. Even though I am not originally from Philly or a big sports fan, I love watching the play-off games. It seems more exiting when there is more at stake. The whole city talks about the games, so it is nice

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-81778329707671460682009-10-30T07:32:00.001-04:002009-10-30T07:32:00.401-04:00

On Wednesday, we had a half day and got to work with the kindergarten classes. This is the first time I have worked with them since they don't come to the science room during the week. Kindergarten is such a different type of setting. The students are literally learning how school functions and about their role in it. They all wanted to share ideas with the teacher. It seemed like it would

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-7681144048638925582009-10-29T07:26:00.003-04:002009-10-29T07:32:08.581-04:00

The 4th grade class was particularly rowdy this week in student teaching. They were whispering, playing with the materials in the buckets, and one girl was even flipping upside down in her seat. My CM carried on with the lesson because there was only about 10 minutes left of the class and she wanted to get through the material for those who were paying attention. It was so frustrating to watch

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-19008830578829689412009-10-22T18:42:00.000-04:002009-10-22T18:42:00.470-04:00

I was able to work with a small group in the 3rd grade. I pulled four girls out to do the same lesson that they were doing inside with the teacher. We were talking about minerals and starting to look at some of the properties of minerals. The girls were very excited to be working one-on-one with me. I wondered how I could maintain their excitement, but also keep my role as a teacher figure

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-38646243286823133022009-10-21T18:25:00.002-04:002009-10-21T18:31:39.434-04:00

This week was pretty exciting in my student teaching. NancyLee, the TEP program coordinator and Science Methods instructor, came to PAS to release monarch butterflies. We were working with 2nd grade when she was there, so we took them outside to watch the release. The kids ooo-ed and ahhh-ed over the butterflies and screamed in excitement when they flew away! Since we already had them outside

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-49398192663237009412009-10-13T14:07:00.000-04:002009-10-13T14:07:00.389-04:00

Today we had a really exciting 1st grade science class during my student teaching. The 1st graders have been learning about the properties of solids by doing different observations and experiments. Today they were determining if objects were magnetic or not. First they had to predict what they thought would be magnetic and then test their predictions. They loved this activity! The room was

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-38654827349507892442009-10-11T16:08:00.000-04:002009-10-11T16:08:00.285-04:00

Today in my Field Seminar class we had two guest speakers from the Prospect Center, Lynn Strieb and Rhoda Khanev. Both women taught in Philadelphia for over 30 years and came to class to guide us in a descriptive review process. A descriptive review of a child is a method that some teachers use in order to better understand their students as individual learners and to get feedback and

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-2732472438858026292009-10-09T15:54:00.001-04:002009-10-09T16:06:43.688-04:00

Wednesday was a half day at PAS, the school where I am student teaching. I did not know what to expect for the day since I work in the science classroom and no students were going to be visiting our room. My classroom mentor and I went on a field trip with a 3rd grade class to the Arthur Ross Gallery at Penn. It was amazing! The current exhibit is watercolor paintings by David Kennedy. He

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-83558216742697856542009-10-02T14:06:00.002-04:002009-10-02T14:23:12.074-04:00

I went to the Phillies game last night. This is now the second game of the season that I have attended. The first was over the summer. We had standing-room only tickets, so it made the game seem a lot longer. Last night we had seats in a section right behind the foul ball marker (I am not really a sports person, so I don't know the technical term.) One of my roommates had bought the tickets a

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8374473156628228740.post-44048079632179918832009-09-23T21:41:00.002-04:002009-09-23T21:57:26.788-04:00

Welcome to my blog! I am kind of new to the whole idea of blogging, but I think I am going to have a lot to write about this year. I am enrolled in the Graduate School of Education (GSE) at Penn to get my master's in elementary education. We have already completed our first semester this summer and are 3 weeks into the fall semester. I am loving all of my classes! We are taking classes to

Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05335209053347654720noreply@blogger.com0